Cover image: "Untitled: Abandoned Bowling Alley Lonlinear Dubuque" by Christopher Paul Brown
Gallery 3
Visual Art, Poetry, and Prose
Neha Mulay
Suspension
I will wait here and not stir. As long as I stay still,
he in his wanderings will surely come to me.
I wait…and today has grown dark too.
After Hanjo by Yukio Mishima
When we spoke, wine flowed from docks. Dust-flecks cried for alcoves. How we drank from flaming lakes and how we fled. The glorious push-pull of our saturnian waltz still sways, still breaks. We lost all our words, Yoshio. Fumbled with them till they fell. Now, they are hymns in jars we water in spite of the rain.
Somewhere, a parrot moves and I lose sleep. In stillness, tea brims with you. I inhale smoke and somewhere, you exhale. We mirror each other but we do not talk. We do not talk. Bread flakes in dreamless waiting rooms.
What is your face that makes masks of men? Five cups outside my window but the house is yours. My body rasps against your shiver in the floorboards, blossoms dry on my tongue. Five hooks at the door. Green eyes scoff at the arrival of spring.
I forage shipwrecks for lonesome scraps of you. When the brink tilts, I walk the languid bay. At Miyajima, I stand underneath the shrine where the water opens me like your roughshod hands. Blinded as I am by saffron, I ache.
Come home, Yoshio. I am what you went looking for. I can never be lost. Come home.
Drown your vagrant sun.
Neha Mulay is an Australian-Indian writer and a current MFA candidate in poetry at New York University. Her poems have appeared/are forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, The Maine Review, and SAND Journal, among other publications. Her essays have appeared in Overland (online) and Feminartsy. She is the Web Editor for the Washington Square Review.
Robyn Leigh Lear
Myself in Christian County
Following the bend in waters where the Red River drains
into Christian country, tracing clay clouds and red
ribbons where the land is baptized by blood, water, and sky.
Where the witchy waters bend at the southern fork, and I
stand wondering if there are more secrets in southern turns
or if all points encompass something unsaid but felt.
I bathed in the red mud to wash away my brown skin, but
after the rebirth from the waters I was darker than before.
Skin like mud but star-like pyrite and flecks of quarts transformed
me into a cryptic universe. Centuries were lost studying
my palms and heavens were placed at my feet—I search
cloudland for evidence of my histories but can’t find myself
in Christian County. Here secrets are hidden in mailboxes,
love letters dissipate into routine, and hope must be excavated
with a plow or scythe. I plunge my hands into the earth but find
seedlings won’t grow in soil that bleeds. I excavate a nation of
unmarked graves that gave the land haunt—I return to the river
and empty my rainstorm into waters hoping to find myself.
I quietly await storms where rain replenishes what was lost in jars.
Robyn Leigh Lear was born to the world, but she claims no country. Her soul dances through the North Carolina hills, her heart beats for the history of Savannah, GA, but her eyes look longingly toward deep, unexplored corners of the Southern landscape. Her writing is a combination of chaos and searching, and perhaps her history reflects this lack of direction. She is the creative dreamer behind Authors and Artists: The Regenerates, a writing and art collective that attempts to better understand the two mediums. Robyn is the Creative Director and “resident dreamer” for April Gloaming Publishing, working closely with authors and artists to help them bring their dreams from the background into reality. She is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of the South, and her poetry was recently selected for the Kindling Arts Festival.
Christopher Paul Brown
Christopher Paul Brown is known for his exploration of the unconscious through improvisation and the cultivation of serendipity and synchronicity via alchemy. He has applied this method to music, video and 2-D art. His first photography sale was to the collection of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana and his video “You Define Single File” was nominated for the Golden Gate Award at the 47th San Francisco International Film Festival in 2004.
Over the past three years his art was exhibited twice in Rome, Italy and in Belgrade, Serbia. His series of ten photographs, titled Obscure Reveal, were exhibited at a Florida museum in 2017. He earned a BA in Film from Columbia College Chicago in 1980. Brown was born in Dubuque, Iowa, USA and now resides in Buncombe County, North Carolina, USA.
David Drury
The Rules of Heaven and Earth
(1)The veil between Earth and Heaven catches a rip from time to time. The veil is not steel. The veil is not Tupperware. You would not want that.
(2) The veil is just one veil, but many betweens—Earth/Heaven, body/spirit, natural/supernatural, third/fourth, east/west, north/star, wounded father/hopeful daughter.
(3) The veil gets caught on a thing from time to time—a nail in a tree, a bent screw in a signal tower, a cloud at sunset shaping itself into a pink elephant, a branch clutching to leaves inside the rumors of a breeze, the breath of a boy standing below the branch holding a rake.
(4) Where the veil catches, an opening forms. A vex, an abrasion, a sting—threads wormed apart like your index finger pushing through the bottom corner of the sheer curtain while you sat on the heater vent and watched your new sibling learn to roll over.
(5) You might think the angels rush to sew up the veil. You are wrong. They never rush.
(6) Nor are they not the only ones. At the split, we. We fall over one another to sew it up, we. We in great fear and little else, we. We reload the staple-gun and deny what we saw, we. We put a hot glue gun and three square city blocks of black felt between ourselves and what we think we saw, we. We answer all questions, we. We close all doors, we. We hammer all nails, we. We drive them deep into the trunk of the tree, we. And then we pull the tree up and dispose of it quietly just to make sure.
(7) There one night—in the shop that had stood vacant for years—the lights came up of their own accord. Individuals moved about inside, dull, dutiful and warm. We took these to be spirits. Family members long since buried. We watched the spirits writing out prayers on index cards. The prayers we read on the cards were familiar to us. Word for word we had said them that day, in traffic, over the kitchen sink, on the toilet. We had said them still. Said them small. Said them alone. The spirits paced with those cards. They made calls. They knelt at their desk chairs and rubbed at the ink on the cards with their thumbs. Tears rolled down their cheeks like diamonds, and an invisible hand caught each one before it hit the floor.
David Drury lives in Seattle, Washington. His fiction has been broadcast on National Public Radio and twice published in Best American Nonrequired Reading. He has a master’s degree in Theology and has been kicked out of every casino in Las Vegas. www.daviddruryauthor.com
Andrea Clark
Social Nearness
I want to go away.
Several plane rides away.
I want fresh air, some good Argentine air.
I want to wander unmasked and dance.
Like the time Calysta and I found Lindy Hop lessons
on the sidewalk during a stroll through Oakland.
Turns out Lindy Hop is just another word
for the jitterbug Grandpa taught us so well.
I traveled from Lake Merritt to the VFW hall
in Englewood Florida that afternoon where they
whispered, Is that young girl Mel’s escort? Papa Mel cried
that night when he saw me wear Mimi’s dress six months
after her death. Then we really cut a rug.
We travel now in our minds but in real life, I want to
dance with someone. Move step
in step with a stranger, nod and move away.
Andrea Clark is a Bay Area poet. Educated at the University of Michigan and Yale University, she is currently a low-residency MFA student at Dominican University of California. Her poetry has appeared in Cathexis Northwest Press, Global Poemic, Tuxedo, and Dark Moon Lilith. Her poem “Tongues Not Welcome” was a semifinalist for the 2020 Jane Underwood Poetry Prize.
Agnes Pang
Agnes Pang is an artist with 2 degrees and 2 master’s degrees (BA, LLB, MBA and MAJSP). She is the author of a bilingual DIY book Agnes Recycles – Arts and Crafts. In addition, she is an advocate of recycled art and has been sharing her creative ideas through her column in newspapers and TV programs. For details of her profile, see www.agnesrecycles.com.
Stephen Campiglio
Port of Sanity
As backwater slips
into the mainstream,
bends in the mainstream
create backwater.
The personal mill stream
fuels the stone
that grinds the person
into palpable shape
with each cutting moment.
At the delicate port
of sanity, tide going out,
and a boat, untied.
Stephen Campiglio serves as the Coordinator for Non-Credit Personal Enrichment and Professional Development Programs in Continuing Education at Manchester Community College in CT, where he also founded and for 12 years directed the Mishi-maya-gat Spoken Word & Music Series. His poems and translations have recently appeared in Aji, Chiron Review, Circumference (Pi Poetry), Glimpse, Journal of Italian Translation, Manzano Mountain Review, Miramar, and The Wayfarer. His new translation project, with co-translator Dr. Elena Borelli, is focused on Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli (1855-1912). For his own work, twice-nominated for a Pushcart Prize, he was a quarterfinalist in the 2018 Codhill Press poetry contest for a book-length manuscript and has published two chapbooks, Cross-Fluence (Soft Spur Press, Missoula, MT: 2012) and Verbal Clouds through Various Magritte Skies (Cy Gist Press, New Haven, CT: 2014).
Nicole Farmer
Daughter and Mother
She calls me from the road.
I sit on a stool in my little blue kitchen.
She tells me she knows how to change a tire now.
I eat cottage cheese and marvel at her skills.
She pitched a tent outside of the Carlsbad Caverns and cooked baked beans.
I planted seventeen tomatoes in holes I cut in the black plastic garden patch.
She went to Joshua tree and tried to dig a sand-stuck car out of the desert with two ice scrapers.
I cooked spaghetti sauce with canned tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, and artichoke hearts.
She slept in a deserted cabin infested with rats, which she ran screaming from at four am.
I sit at my desk and stare at the blank page, waiting for the muse to descend.
She marches in the pro-Palestine demonstration in Los Angeles.
I make lists of art supplies for my summer camp.
She jogs on the beach in Venice.
I walk laps at the high school track.
She has a blind date with a tall Nordic Amazon in Long Beach, but no sparks fly.
I laugh at her stories and smack my knee.
She is a phoenix rising again and again each morning with her wounded heart dripping blood down to her knees, and beams of sunshine streaming out of her eye sockets.
I await her next call, like a chapter in a suspense novel.
She weaves a story better than any spider does her web and her laugh makes my head bubble and fizz like exploding joy from a champagne bottle.
She is cast from fire.
I am spun from water.
Nicole Farmer is a writer, teacher, and director living in Asheville, NC. Her poems have been published in The Sheepshead Review, The Bangalore Review, The Roadrunner Review and The Great Smokies Review, and her play 50 JOBS was produced in Los Angeles. As a child, she dreamed she was a superhero named Jake who rescued damsels and blokes in distress with no cape – but with a fantastic mustache.
Vian Borchert
Vian Borchert is an established award-winning artist. V. Borchert has exhibited in many group and solo exhibitions within the US and internationally. Vian is a graduate and “Notable Alumni” from the Corcoran College of Art and Design George Washington University in Washington, DC. Borchert exhibits in major cities like NYC, LA, DC, and Berlin. V. Borchert’s art has been featured in press such as The Washington Post, ARTPIL, Art Reveal magazine and others. Borchert teaches fine art classes in the metropolitan Washington, DC area. Website: www.vianborchert.com
Rachel Glass
Glass
I’m contemplating the chances
of being killed by a bird
when Pigeon collides with my window,
leaving the outline of a ghost.
I tell my nephew
Pigeon is now flying in God’s aviary,
squabbling with the blackbird
I killed three years ago.
I’m sure Blackbird still gives his opinion.
But there are still birds
and there are still windows
and glass stops the world from coming in.
I stick flamingo pink cotton candy
to my window to soften the blow
and I hire a hawk to stand guard.
I’m sorry to scare you
but at least you’re still alive.
In the kitchen, a butterfly
tries to find her way out.
I open the window
but she still flies into glass.
Rachel Glass lives in Scarborough, England, and has been writing most of her life. Her poem “Octopus” was highly commended in the Yaffle 2020 poetry competition, and her poem “Breathe” was included in the CivicLeicester BLM anthology. In the next few months, two poems will feature in Dreich magazine. She’s also an admin for The Poetry Cove forum and spends her free time writing, drinking hot chocolate and wearing glittery shoes. She can be found on Instagram and tiktok @rachelglass25.
Jones Irwin
Number
Into the room he sweeps quick knock and enter barely knows her who cares all hands and fingers and tongues and she had ordered meringues real names aren’t shared not that it matters she seems relieved he wasn’t a mass murderer he can’t remember the numbers on her phone neither of them feels anything any longer every lover Moira counted over five times until she was relatively sure she could cover the relative ins and outs of the whole shebang still there were rumours at the back of her mind that she had manoeuvred several lovers out of find’s reach so as to present a more palatable picture of her behaviour seriously though there were some lovers she just couldn’t remember others who gave her such a fever she lost them forever and ever lovemaking was an awkward word Moira always pondered in between lovers losing her bearings yearning for easier takings better we gave each other pleasure as if she was always half-winking half-wanking whispering thanks for the favours to the myriad cadavers when it was over the relief from the overarching bother where there was never any hope of anything or anyone more even any desire for
Moira speaks: I’m finally seeing a really cool guy now just hoping those bits of him that fit as if he could be the one aren’t me getting him all wrong when he kisses me deep he closes his eyes which you never did and he tells me he loves me which you never could I have the feeling he is mostly sincere and he shows more care about things that matter such as the world refugee crisis or literature still there is part of me…
But what part of this is me exactly been thinking it through lately how you left in a total huff I was sat on the Maida Vale bed in the buff seriously wondering yet again what the fuck you can say what you want doesn’t matter much now anyhow still we had it hot good for a while longer than would have been well expected and if I could go right back to that moment you left me in the buff you in a total huff well I’ve been doin’ some thinking I might actually have tried to phone you sex text semi-nude photo or summat follow it up whatever not let it just die out as I did do but then so did you too apart from that late missive the next week when you sounded almost despairing and being honest I could only laugh at that sorry point thinking to myself honest to God if he goes and commits suicide hangs himself by his longest swanny neck like he says he bloomin’ will well baby it ain’t any of my fault romantic world good riddance and reader yes you can repeat that.
Jones Irwin teaches Philosophy and Education in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. He has published original monographs on philosophy and aesthetics. He has published poetry most recently in Poetry London, Showbear Family Circus, Passengers Journal, Plainsongs, The Dewdrop and Poets’ Choice. His creative nonfiction was also recently published in Kairos Magazine and his flash fiction was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. This past summer, he had creative fiction published in The Decadent Review and in a new book on experimental aesthetics. He is also currently preparing a book on existential themes, to be published with Routledge, London in early 2021.
Marielle Hehir
Marielle Hehir was born in Manchester and studied at Manchester Metropolitan University before completing an MA at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Now based in London she is currently undertaking a practice-led PhD with the University of Leeds, having received a full scholarship from WRoCAH. Recent exhibitions include Nightswimming 2018, Curated by LLE Gallery at Mission Gallery, Swansea and Squeeze, 2017, The Hive, London. In 2017 she was shortlisted for The John Ruskin Prize Exhibition, The Millennium Gallery, Sheffield and in 2016 she was shortlisted for Contemporary British Painting Prize Riverside Gallery, London.
- Website: www.mariellehehir.com
- Instagram: @mariellehehir
Danielle Zipkin
Danielle Zipkin lives in NYC with her husband and puppy. She has poems published or forthcoming in The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, Jacqueline Suskin’s Expressions of Awe, Sinking City Review, Humana Obscura, SamFiftyFour, Feels Blind Literary, VAINE Magazine and elsewhere. Most days, she educates middle schoolers, dances, and haphazardly gardens. Instagram: @dalyssaz
Alex di Tiki
Alex di Tiki is a self-taught artist who started painting in 2015. Born in 1968 in Italy, she lived many years in exotic countries (Africa, Saudi Arabia). The typical feeling of nostalgia for these countries are a strong incentive for her works, and this is expressed with the use of many colors (more or less realistic, yet always very bright), and the subject is always a hymn to the fluidity of movement and aesthetics. The used technique is acrylics on linen or cotton, yet there is a continuous evolution, a constant renewal of her art, testing new techniques (sponges, brushes, fingers) and new materials.
